Carla Kelly (4 page)

She shook her head. “No, I did not. Someone must keep an eye on Joseph, and it has been so many years since Mama has been anywhere.”

“You are all kindness,” he said.

Libby stole a sidelong look at Anthony Cook. The words from anyone else would have seemed merely a glib utterance, soon forgotten. When Dr. Cook said them, they seemed to mean something. I wonder why he is not married yet, she thought.

3

“WHY am I doing this?” the Duke of Knaresborough asked himself again as he clucked to the modest horse that pulled his gig sedately across Kent.

Augusta had been too quick for him in the dining room. When Luster had announced to his sister that the duke was already on his way to the Lake District, she had uttered an oath that made Benedict blush in the dark of the dumbwaiter, and marched right to his hiding place, flinging the door open. She had stared at him with narrowed eyes, hands on her hips, lips pressed tight together, until he started to sweat.

“Benedict Nesbitt, it is high time you grew up and did your duty by your family,” she said to him finally, biting off each word.

Meekly he pulled himself from the dumbwaiter. Augusta jabbed her thumb in the direction of a chair and he sat down, wishing that his head wasn’t five times larger than the room and Augusta’s voice less debilitating in his weakened state.

He listened with half an ear as she railed on about “choicest morsels on the marriage mart,” and “devoting my good time to you,” but took exception when she started in on his ancestors and how they must be reeling about in the family vault.

“Now really, Gussie,” he had attempted, but she cut him off with a fierce stare.

“Yes, really! Every one of them married and set up their nurseries.” She flung her arms about. “And here you are, rising thirty, and all you can think about is drinking your next bottle. You didn’t used to be this way.”

He sat there and took it all, knowing that she would never understand how comforting were the moments when the liquor was inside him and his surroundings were a pleasant blur. He wasn’t cold then, that peculiar battlefield cold that he couldn’t forget. He couldn’t hear anything then, when he was full of Scotch or gin—it didn’t matter. There were no sudden sounds, no stirrings and rustling, none of his dying men, ghosts a year now, pleading for help that he couldn’t render. Augusta would never understand the way wine allowed the responsibility to slip from his shoulders and that he could forget, if only for a moment, the weight of his years and the years stretching ahead.

Augusta would never understand, so he made no attempt to tell her. He wanted her to go away. If she would only leave, he could straighten himself around and then begin drinking again, and he would soon forget that she had ever been there.

But Augusta was not budging this time. He struggled to listen to her. She droned on and on about Kensington Galleries and Lady Fanny Hyslip until he put the two together and nodded.

The effect on Augusta was startling. Without a warning, she grabbed him and kissed his cheek. “I knew you would not fail me, brother,” she said. “Two o’clock, then? Fanny and I will be at the Titians.”

He nodded and suffered his hand to be wrung. “You’ll never regret this, Nez,” his sister was saying, and already he could not remember what it was he would never regret.

He managed a small wave in her general direction as she left the room as swiftly as she had entered it. He spent a moment in muddled reflection, then sank into sleep again.

He woke hours later, wrenched from sleep by his butler, whose face showed every sign of strain. It was the face of a man who, in a matter of seconds, could be capable of giving his notice.

The duke struggled into an upright position, marveling at how his head throbbed. His throat was drier than a Spanish plain, and he wanted a drink. He motioned toward the sideboard, but Luster ignored him, going so far as to clutch the front of his dressing gown and haul him back into the chair.

“My lord, do you know what time it is?”

Nez shook his head and shuddered as his brains rolled from side to side. His eyes started to close again. Driven to desperation, Luster grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Your grace, you were promised to your sister and Lady Fanny Hyslip at two o’clock in the Kensington Galleries.”

“Was I?” he asked, struggling to remember his sister’s visit, which couldn’t have happened above thirty minutes ago. “Ah, yes. I remember now. Well, what of it?”

Luster sank down in the chair next to his master and declared in a toneless voice, “Your grace, it is after three o’clock.” He looked suddenly old. “I left instructions with the footman to make sure you were awake. He has failed me.”

“Dear me,” said the duke. To his credit, he felt a tiny ripple of fear running like fingers along his backbone. “I’ll send flowers,” he said.

“I rather think it has gone beyond flowers, your grace, particularly since this is not the first time this week you have failed Lady Wogan,” Luster replied. Forgetting the dignity of his years and office, he leapt to his feet and scurried to the window. He peered around the edge of the draperies as if afraid of what he might see on the street.

“I have only just received a missive from your sister to inform you that she is coming directly over again.” He paused and wiped a mustache of sweat from his upper lip. “And she is bringing your mother.” He drew the word out and allowed it to soak into the duke’s piffled brain. “The dowager,” he added, wiped his hands like Pontius Pilate on Good Friday, and left the window.

“God’s wounds,” breathed the duke, “I am in the basket now, ain’t I?”

“You are, sir,” agreed the butler. Luster’s right eye began to twitch ever so slightly.

The duke pulled himself to his feet. He looked at Luster and then crossed to the window himself and peered out. He stood there in silence for a long moment.

“We could be facing a crisis of monumental proportions, Luster,” he murmured as he let the drapery fall from nerveless fingers.

Luster nodded, stood as tall as he could, and delivered the final blow of the afternoon. “Your grace, you will face this crisis alone. The cook, housekeeper, your valet, and I have tendered our resignations. You will find them on the desk in your study.”

Benedict Nesbitt stared at his old retainer. “Luster, you have been in the family since before I can remember.”

Luster took a deep breath. “For the most part, your grace, I have enjoyed our association. Now we part company.”

At this intelligence, the duke sank to the chair again and scratched his chest. “I could offer you more money,” he ventured.

“You could, my lord. I would not take it.”

“I could promise the cook one of those newfangled cooking ranges.”

“You could, your grace. The outcome would not satisfy you, however.”

The silence that followed stretched into minutes, until the duke sighed. “I know that look on your face, Luster.” He spread his hands out on his knees. “What must I do to retain you and my entire household staff?” he asked at last. “What extortion must I surrender to?”

Luster coughed and looked down at his own hands, which shook only slightly. “You must go on that errand you promised to do this morning. If you are truly not here, we can probably rub through this knothole. Lady Wogan will storm and rail, and your mother will require an entire carafe of smelling salts, but we can pull it off. If you are not here,” he added, underscoring each word with a wave of a finger.

The duke was silent for a moment, engaged in the almost visible effort of thinking. “I . . . I did promise Eustace something, didn’t I?” he asked. “It was something about a young woman, wasn’t it?” He paused and frowned at his butler. “But what is this? You just said that you were quitting my service, and now you want to save my bacon. I don’t precisely understand.”

A slight smile flitted across the butler’s impassive features. “It is this way, your grace. Your father exacted a promise from me that I would look after you.” He noted the duke’s startled expression. “It surprised me too, your grace, but there it is.”

“I wish I had been here when he died, Luster,” murmured the duke. “God, how it chafed me to receive the news in Belgium, and then I could not leave.” He sighed.

Luster rose to his feet again. “I will keep that promise to your father, my lord, but only if you are away from here within the quarter-hour.”

He delivered the last sentence in a loud voice that made Nez wince and clutch at his temples. “Very well, Luster, I will do it.” He managed a sickly smile. “Even though I have vowed not to exert myself ever again.”

Luster took the duke by the arm. He pulled the duke gently to his feet. “I have managed to arrange for the loan of a gig.” When the only response was an upraised eyebrow, the butler smiled beatifically. “A gig, your grace, yes indeed.”

“I could never,” declared the duke.

“You have promised your friend,” the butler reminded. “And if you do not, we will quit your service. If you manage to rusticate a month or so in Kent—and don’t roll your eyes at Kent, your grace—it might be sufficient to calm Lady Augusta. Your mother will have other thoughts to occupy her by then. Come, sir, and do your duty.”

Luster helped his master toward the door. “Do you know, your grace, Cheedleep found several suits of clothing that might possibly be something a chocolate merchant would wear.”

“Not in my closet he never did,” declared the duke.

“Ah, but he did,” insisted the butler. “In your very own closet. Come, your grace. I have already taken the liberty of packing a bag for you and have authorized a sufficient sum on your bank. It remains for you to pick up your business cards in Fleet Street.”

“Luster, this is out of the question,” snapped the duke, digging in his heels.

Luster did not blink in the face of obstinacy. “Then you, sir, must face the dowager and your sister alone.” He lowered his eyes and his voice was soft. “We will pray for you, your grace, from the safety of the park across the street.”

The duke spent a long moment in contemplation of his butler. Dash it all, he thought, Luster is too old to be flinging around his resignation. And who’s fault is that? came the other voice from somewhere inside his skull.

“Who’s fault, indeed?” he said out loud.

“Your grace?”

“Nothing, Luster.” He spent another moment in thought. “I suppose you are adamant, Luster,” he ventured finally.

“I am, your grace.”

And so, as the clock struck four, Benedict Nesbitt, Seventh Duke of Knaresborough, found himself steering a gig through London traffic. He hunched himself low in the modest vehicle, acutely aware that he was shabby beyond his wildest imaginings. He cast his bloodshot eyes over the equally modest bag that rested near his feet, an artifact of Luster himself and further proof that the butler had no intention of bolting from the family home while his master was flinging himself about Kent.

Kent! Was there a place more unfashionable? For all he knew of Kent, the people still painted themselves blue and bayed at the moon. No one went to Kent, except to board a vessel for France, and that was only coming back into style again, now that Napoleon had taken up residence on St. Helena. He knew that grandmothers and maiden aunts were wont to pop ’round to Royal Tunbridge Wells, that genteel watering hole for the elegantly senile. Beyond that, Kent was a crater on the moon.

Benedict picked up his business cards in Fleet Street, suffering through an interview with the printer, who leered at him, laughed, and wondered aloud what kind of havey-cavey business the gent was attempting. The duke could only manage a weak smile, overpay the man, and beat a hasty retreat.

“Nesbitt Duke, agent for Copley Chocolatier,” the cards read. He stuck them in his pocket, closed his eyes, and wished that it would all go away and that he would wake up in his own bed, with a bottle nearby.

When he opened his eyes, there was only the rumble of carts and tradesmen jostling him about on the crowded sidewalks. As he stood there, miserable in the clutch of reality, he heard a voice at his elbow.

“Major? Major Nesbitt?”

He whirled around, surprised, and stared down at a man crouched by the shop entrance. He had only one leg and a begging cup, but he was military from the proud set of his shoulders to the dignity of his voice. Nez knelt beside the man, and a slow smile made its way across his face.

“Yes, Private Yore, it is I.”

The man hesitated a moment and then stuck out his hand. Nesbitt took it. “I didn’t see you when I went in,” Nez said, resting back on his haunches, heedless of the people who growled and swore and circled around him on the busy sidewalk.

The man set down the cup and tried to brush it under the edge of his cloak. “Sir, you had a preoccupied look on your face, sir.” He grinned. “I don’t think you’d have noticed Father Christmas, from the set of your glims, sir. Like I say, preoccupied. I seen that look before, your lordship, sir.”

Benedict grinned back. “I daresay you have. We were both a bit ‘preoccupied’ about this time last year, if memory serves me.”

“’Deed we were, sir. Glad to see you’ve recovered, sir.”

“Oh, I’m fine, Yore,” he said quickly, and crossed his fingers behind his back.

The two men looked at each other. The ex-private lowered his eyes first, and the shame of what he was doing spread up his neck and heightened his rather sallow complexion. “It’s a good corner, sir,” he said finally.

Nez could think of nothing to say. His mind was racing. You’re the lad who defended my back, he thought, and I have allowed this to become of you? When did I become so thoughtless?

“Sir?”

“Nothing, Private. I was just . . . thinking.”

“Doesn’t pay to do too much o’ that, sir,” Yore replied quietly.

“Well, maybe it should,” Benedict said. He reached in his pocket and sent a handful of coins clinking into the cup; then he rummaged in his pocket for a pencil and tablet. He scribbled something on the back of one of the Copley Chocolatier order forms, folded it, and pressed it into Yore’s hand.

“Take this ’round to Clarges Street, Private. That’s an order, lad,” he added gruffly when Yore protested.

“Aye, sir,” said the beggar, “if the need arises. Thank ye.”

The duke stood up. “I should thank you. I wonder that I never did.”

“You didn’t need to, sir. You kept us alive, and we should be thanking you.”

“You’re kind, Yore,” he murmured, and felt the unfamiliar tears behind his eyelids. “Now, take that note ’round, do you hear?”

The man nodded. He held up his hand and Benedict shook it again, managed a small salute, and strode off down the street.